Global Microscope on the Microfinance Business Environment
This report provides an in-depth analysis of the microfinance environment in 55 countries across the world, and evaluates microfinance as a commercially viable and sustainable activity. It is based on an index that ranks nations based on their regulatory, investment and institutional environment for microfinance.
The study reveals that Latin America and the Caribbean leads the overall index, followed by South Asia. While Sub-Saharan Africa has the strongest regulatory framework, South Asia ranks highest in institutional development. Eastern Europe and Central Asia has the best investment climate.
The study provides differing levels of geographic coverage, and states that these differences must be taken into account while evaluating regional performance. Key findings regarding reasons for regional differences include:
- Governments in countries that score well support market development through microfinance policies and general regulations;
- Governments of high-scoring countries refrain from implementing large-scale subsidies, and some have created microfinance units within the central bank ;
- In countries at the bottom of the index, governments do not foster microfinance and often intervene with heavy subsidies;
- In low-scoring countries, it is difficult to operate regulated MFIs.
